Page 112 of Pay the Price

No, no, no.

The path was wider than it looked, plenty wide for my car, although I could hear branches breaking and snapping as the fire crew in front of me barreled forward. I had no idea where we were going, but they were obviously headed for the fire and I needed to be there too, needed to know the Beasts were okay.

My phone had gone eerily silent and I felt the shadow of dread move over my psyche, like a storm cloud covering the sun.

We’d been driving through the woods for almost two minutes when the trucks emerged into a clearing.

And then I saw it: an old building that looked almost identical to the Blades’ dorms and rec buildings, flames licking from its windows. The entire thing was ablaze, and I didn’t even bother turning off my car before I clawed at the door, practically falling into the dirt when it finally opened.

A wall of heat hit me like a slap to the face, a roar coming from the burning building like it was alive.

“Everybody out and back!” an older man with a radio and a chief patch on his fire coat yelled. “That roof is gonna go!”

A firefighter grabbed my arm as I lurched forward. “Stay back!”

And then, figures stumbling out of the front of the building, their faces black with soot.

Not three men. Two.

Wolf and Otis staggered forward, their gazes disoriented, chests heaving as they sucked in fresh air.

I broke free of the firefighter holding my arm and ran for them.

“Where is he?” I shouted, pulling on their arms. “Where’s Jace?”

Wolf’s eyes watered. Or maybe he was crying. “He got stuck… We couldn’t… we couldn’t get him out.”

“He made us leave,” Otis said, blinking the soot out of his eyes.

“What?” I looked back at the building. The roar was growing louder, a freight train bearing down, about to crash into the life I’d only just started to build. “You have to go get him! You have to go back!”

“He doesn’t want us to go back,” Otis said. “He made us leave.”

“No.” I moved away from them, taking backward steps toward the burning building, my body on autopilot, instinctively moving toward one of the three men I now knew I couldn’t live without. “No!”

I turned to run toward the burning building, then felt Wolf lift me off my feet as the roof caved in on the building with a whoosh of heat that made him stumble backward.

He had me around the waist, my feet off the ground, kicking, thrashing, desperate to break free as I watched the building collapse into a mass of flames.

“No!” A sob broke free from my throat as a pit of despair opened up at the center of my body, the fire devouring the building. I went limp in Wolf’s arms. “No…”

Chapter 69

Daisy

Iwas still standing at Jace’s grave when everyone else had gone back to the house.

I’d insisted on having a memorial service at the Mercer family cemetery at the back of the property. It was near the top of the falls, the sound of the water rushing to the river below.

Jace would be at peace here.

There was no body. The storage building at the compound had burnt to the ground, Jace trapped under a falling beam when he and Wolf and Otis had fought their way out with an ax they’d found in the attic.

But he deserved a place to rest. Finally.

I knew Wolf and Otis were somewhere behind me, their eyes shielded by sunglasses even though the sky was suitably cloudy. They’d been with me every second since the fire, had kept everyone away, even Cassie and Sarai and Ruth, wrapping me in their protective embrace even though I knew they were hurting too.

I stared at the marker and felt the pit that had been expanding in my chest since the fire widen further. Every time Ithought it couldn’t get bigger, it proved me wrong. It was a black hole of grief, consuming everything in its wake.

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